There was a time long ago that a strange little man from
Baltimore made strange little films using his friends and
general unusual looking but fantastic people. This man was John
Waters, the same John Waters who broke into the mainstream with
"Hairspray," but kept to his roots and made such non
Hollywood films like "Pecker" and "A Dirty Shame."
He also moulded the amazing anti mainstream classic "Cecil B
Demented" with Steve Dorff, Mel Griffith, and another role
for Ricki Lake. He even controversially placed Patty Hearst
into the mix as well.

There's a name in the cast, Mink Stole, a name who occurs in a
lot of his last films, "A Dirty Shame," "Pecker, "Serial
Mom," and "Hairspray." The other regular names are
Susan Lowe and Mary Vivian Pearce who also features in this
film. Who is she? She's carved her name in films over the
years featuring in many low budget releases, but her origins
come from John Waters and his original band of movie misfits. A
time when they were making surreal artwork and straight forward
bad taste on the screens. Hippies, overweight cross dressers,
fat toothless crones, gays, lesbians, models, beauty queens...
all had a place in his travelling sideshow of human oddities.
They struggled with micro budgets, resorted to favours,
families, hand outs and used guerilla tactics to get the films
made. The end results were seen as offensive but camp and so
comical.

Sadly most of his old colleagues are dead, and Mink is one of
the last. She'll probably always be in his films in one role or
another if he ever makes another one. Perhaps the most famous
personality to be remembered from his early films is Divine,
real name Harris Glen Milstead. He was a larger than life
transvestite performer who made his name in John Water's films.

It's because of Divine, or rather the lack of Divine, that
inspired me to review this particular film. Other crude
classics such as "Pink Flamingos" and "Female Trouble"
are talked about a lot, due to Divine more than anything. "Desperate
Living" does not star Divine, instead a few of the other
personalities in his gang are given a chance to shine,
especially Mink Stole. "Desperate
Living" is considered
one of John's best.

Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) and Bosley Gravel (George Stover) live
in a large house in a very upper class area. However, Peggy has
a long history of mental breakdowns and visits to hospitals, she
has just returned home. Our first impression of her is crouched
on her bedroom floor screaming as a kid's ball breaks the
window. "I knew it! I knew they'd try to kill me in my own
home!" Peggy stares from the window at the kids, "I know
you were trying to kill me! What's the matter with the courts?
Do they allow all this malicious destruction of property to run
rampant? I hate the supreme court!" This goes on for some
time, until the phone rings. Answering, she flips out again
because the person dialled the wrong number: âYou're sorry?
How could you ever repay the thirty seconds you've stolen from
my life? I hate you!â

This is all a serious portrait of a woman on the edge of
sanity...... no it isn't, Mink Stole's outbursts are so over the
top they are hilarious and seem to never end. It's like a
bizarre variation of Isabelle Adjani from "The Possession"
when she just screams and screams. Next she finds her two young
children naked in a cupboard playing doctor and patient, so off
she goes again. âOh god! The children are having sex!
Sodomites! Beth, what if you are pregnant! Raping your sister,
oh god!â

Bosley catches their huge maid, Grizelda, stealing. He grabs
her handbag. âI don't want no white man lookin' at my tampax!â
she cries. He finds his cheque book, a lottery ticket and
toilet rolls(!!??) All chaos breaks loose, one thing leads to
another, Peggy batters her husband and Grizelda sits on his
head, killing him. Then they go on the run.

A goofy cop on a motorbike stops them in the woods (played by a
man called Turkey Joe -- I've hunted the web and there's no
record of him at all anywhere, which is a shame). âI know
who you are, you're Peggy Gravel, you killed your husband.
You're trying to escape to Mortsville.â Neither woman have
heard of the town. In a standard twist of events in John's
world, the cop strips to a pair of panties and stockings. He
wants their underwear and a kiss. They protest but reluctantly
pass their knickers to him. He puts them on and forces a kiss
from them, then lays on the road rubbing himself. He tells them
to go and gives directions to Mortsville.

Mortsville is a shanty town for criminals and outcasts. As they
walk the streets it seems to be populated by leather clad gay
men, hippies, blacks, photographers and other unexplainable
folks. It's like if Woodstock had been performed on the streets
of seventies New York.

Mole (Susan Lowe), a butch lesbian, takes them in and gives them
a room, which still has the corpse of a bum who killed himself
the night before. âLeft a right mess.â They meet Mole's
girlfriend Muffy, played by b-movie actress, ex gangster moll,
and stripper Liz Renay, who sometimes needs a man. Mole is
upset by this so stabs a fork into her hand. Suddenly a gang of
Village People biker lookalikes burst in and take Peggy and
Grizelda to see Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey) at her cardboard
fronted palace. They are both made to eat live roaches as
Carlotta screams at them; a sort of introduction to the warmth
of Mortsville. It turns out that the Queen is at war with her
daughter Princess Coo-Coo (Mary Vivian Pearce) who wants a life
away from the palace. The Queen spends her time eating,
shouting and having sex with her guards. Check the fantastic
ugly sexual encounters 35-minutes in and 1-hour 5-minutes in --
these scenes will live with you forever.

Peggy isn't making many friends, Grizelda is sick of her
moaning, Mole wants to kill her and Muffy looks fed up. It
turns out that Mole used to be a wrestler who gouged out a man's
eye and choked a referee.

Laid naked in bed, minus the corpse, Grizelda forces herself
onto Peggy. Peggy accepts her advances in the end and fights
her way through Grizelda's roles of fat to eat her.

In another twist of fate, Mole has claimed Boseley's lottery
ticket and won. Meanwhile, tragedy strikes after Peggy and
Grizelda discover Princess Coo-Coo hiding in their room with her
dead boyfriend (don't ask). As the guards arrive to take her,
Grizelda fights them (in reality she nearly knocked one actor
out by throwing him into the wall forcefully), and the room
caves in crushing her. Carlotta casts out Princess Coo-Coo and
claims Peggy as her new daughter since they both hate the
residents of Mortsville.

Mole pays for a sex change and shows her member to Muffy. Muffy
is horrified and vomits. Mole cuts her manhood off with a pair
of scizzors. This scene apparently stunned a lot of his loyal
followers. Me however, I find it fits perfectly into the
cartoonish surrealism.

Peggy injects Coo-Coo with rabies and sends her out to infect
the citizens. Mole's friends find her foaming green slime from
her mouth after being gang raped. It's time for revolution --
Coo-Coo wants her mother dead and Mole wants to destroy Peggy.

The characters are very solid compared to "Pink Flamingos"
and, say "Multiple Maniacs." The budget and the blood
feel a lot like a Hershell Gordon Lewis film, and just as much
fun. If you've never seen a pre-"Hairspray" curio of
John Waters, I wouldn't really recommend this one as a starter.
As good as it is it would maybe feel like the deep end. We
started many years ago with a VHS of "Female Trouble,"
followed by "Polyester." From then on, we just hit his
films from every angle.

New Line Entertainment released a few double bills of John
Water's films. My review is taken from volume 2 featuring "Polyester"
and "Desperate Living." The DVDs come with an Odorama
card for "Polyester," and there's a commentary for "Desperate
Living" with John and Liz Renay. Liz is a very flamboyant
personality and her life would have made a brilliant John Waters
film itself. The commentary makes your head spin with stories
and silly knowledge. For instance, Peggy's breakdown was filmed
in John's parent's house. He wasn't allowed to touch the
ornaments. Liz also played the unseen woman terrifying Peggy in
the 'Glory Hole Tits' scene. Mole's character was based on a
real lesbian who was a truck stop prostitute, blackheads and
all, and so on. There's so many.

In his book, Shock Value, John describes his creation as: â...a
lesbian melodrama about revolution. "Desperate
Living"
is a monstrous fairy-tale comedy dealing with mental anguish,
penis envy, and political corruption. It's target audience is
very neurotic adults with the mentalities of eight-year-olds.â